Coyote Crossing

Steam chugged out from beneath the hood; a cockeyed wheel spun on the overturned front axle. The dust-grimed box truck must’ve smashed the canyon wall moments before Grady hiked around the cliff bend. Not exactly what he expected to encounter on his excursion from Big Bend National Park while celebrating a monumental fifty-days sobriety from cocaine.

Only an hour earlier, he had detoured off the Boquillas Trail and swam across the shallow Rio “border” into Mexico. Just because he could. No program director out here in the Tex-Mex wilderness to suggest what he should or shouldn’t do with an almost compassionate smile.

Reminded him of his almost wife. She left him standing at the altar.

Grady wiped his sweaty palms on his damp athletic shorts before yanking open the passenger door of the unfortunate vehicle. He swore.

Still dripping with blood, the driver, a twenty-something Hispanic kid, slouched sideways, fragments of glass embedded into his face, neck, and chest; the latter of which was no longer rising and falling. No airbag. Gasoline fumes tickled his nostrils. Grady swore again, adrenaline quivering his body as though he’d bumped coke half a dozen times. He leaned uneasily over the kid to place two fingers on the carotid artery below his jaw. No pulse.

Out of habit, Grady glanced quickly over both shoulders, scouring the orange cliffs and trail for another pair of eyes, his own pulse mellowing when his surroundings checked out.

A high-pitched jingle made him reach for the phone in his pocket before realizing it wasn’t his. The phone on the seat jingled again. The florescent screen displayed a name, Mateo, and the words, pin to unlock. Underneath the phone lay a knapsack with drawstrings. Grady slid it out, opened it, and promptly lost his breath. Stacks of cash. Another swear word, this time out of disbelief. He wove his hand through the rubber-banded wads. At least 20k. Could buy him a kilo, maybe more.

Or would’ve. Back in the day.

Fifty days ago.

He buried his hand in the money, to count it this time, but his fingers brushed against leather. A small black book. What the heck was this kid running? Grady fanned through the page after page of two-columned lists, then stopped on the last entry:

Felicia Galvez, 1,000.

Esteban Galvez, 1,000.

Daniela Gomez, 1,500.

His heart dropped at the final name the kid had penned.

Nah. Coincidence.

It was one of the first things he’d learned as a dealer: don’t leave a trail, much less identifiers. Especially not last names. He tossed the book onto the floorboard of the ruined truck. Dumb kid.

Didn’t matter now.

One last look at the kid, a coyote--one who smuggled illegals across the border--then Grady hung his head. Even though he didn’t exactly believe in such things, he made the sign of the cross, figuring the young driver was catholic. Probably the closest thing to a funeral he’d get. His poor mother.

Sighing, he shifted his Dallas cowboys cap to deflect the sun from beaming into his eyes and licked the salt from his lips. He’d left his sunglasses along with his bottled water in the car at the head of the trail. According to the sun’s position, it was around four o’clock, though he didn’t check his phone to confirm. Curfew was at 7 p.m. for all recovering addicts. He had at least a half-hour drive to the group facility. And that was in addition to however long it took him to get back to the parking lot.

He couldn’t help but stare at the bag. Twenty thousand dollars just sitting there. It scratched the back of his mind like an annoying burr. He could give it to some charity or turn it in to the authorities.

Dang program director with all her suggestions about more--as she called it--honorable lifestyle choices. He grunted, adjusted his hat, and grabbed the bag of cash. Before he changed his mind, he tightened the drawstrings and slung his arms through.

As a parting farewell to the driver’s unfortunate demise, Grady thumped his fist twice against the back door of the truck and started to leave. Wait. He paused, listened. Was that a muffled reply?

He froze. Blinked once. Twice. Exhaled. Inhaled and made up his mind. “Hello? Hola?” The voice that emerged from his throat croaked as though arid from the heat. “Someone in there?”

Obviously, someone was.

Grady walked back to the rear of the truck, stopped, and let out a long exhale. “Hola?” He lifted the latch and shoved the roll-door upward. Squinting, he focused on the figures hunched in the shade. “Daniela?!” Was it really his ex-fiance? His face went numb. No coke to blame for the sensation this time. And he was too shocked to think of a swear word.

A woman with doe eyes, shoulder-length raven hair, and the same cocoa butter skin stared at him. The night before their wedding five years ago was the last time he had seen her. Simple beauty. Her shoulders had glowed in that yellow dress, her jewelry-less collarbone had called out to him like a sweet siren’s song. Her smile, no, her presence was air to his lungs.

He thought he had known her heart.

His mistake.

But it wasn’t her. This woman did not smile. Additionally, a puckered scar zigzaged along her jaw. A bruise was forming on her leg, and blood pooled just below her lip. Hastily she stood up, aware of his scrutiny, a defeated air hunching her t-shirted shoulders. Her arms curled protectively around a boy and a girl; he presumed they were her children. They couldn’t have been older than five years. Blood trickled down the side of the girl’s brown face and the boy held his arm, eyebrows crunched, obviously in pain.

Grady stared at her. He couldn’t forget how natural Daniela had looked holding his two-month-old niece one Christmas. Her face had shone as she looked down at the baby, lips parted just a little; then her eyes had flashed toward him knowingly. How she had twirled and laughed in the rain at their Cowboy tailgate party, how her clothes had stuck to every delicious curve of her body, and how oblivious she had been to his perusal while she celebrated the Dallas win. The way she had always passed out before the movie ended, her fingers tucked around his hip, her popcorn breath steady on his chest.

Then he remembered the tear-streaked, anguished face of her maid-of-honor, Grady’s sister, when she told him at the altar that Daniela wasn’t coming, that she’d run off with someone else--

He needed a hit. He licked his lips. Bad. The angry sorrow swelled in his gut, pitched his mind from one memory to the next, a four-wheeler careening up and down bouldered trails and suddenly he was desperate for the numbness of his addiction. He was a fool to have loved her. A fool to have asked her to marry him. A fool to--

One of the children whimpered, and his inner four-wheeler lost control and slung into a cactus horde. His eyes felt gritty as though sand really had been flung into them. The dead driver. The money. The notebook. The family in the back of the truck. Grady wrenched his hat from his head and passed his fingers through his hair. Hissed through clenched teeth. He mentally cursed Daniela for being here in this freakin’ impossible moment. He wanted to scream his anguish, then run and hide and slam cocaine until he passed out.

But here she was, demanding he face her, absolutely sober. Fifty days sober. Staring silently back at him with tears in her eyes and the faintest smile now on her face. He caught a whiff of her lilac cologne. “Grady?”

“What the heck are you doing here??”

Her smile disappeared and shame fell on her expression as she stumbled out of the box truck, the children helping each other down behind her.

“Look, the smuggler that was driving is dead.”

Daniela blinked at him.

Grady looked away and tried not to growl. “The border is fifty yards from here. I’ll show you where to cross. The Rio isn’t deep.” Keep it matter-of-fact. He turned quickly, because if he looked at her any longer, his heart might cave in.

“Grady!”

“I’m sure someone at one of the hiking stations can make sure you get somewhere safe.”

Fingertips touched his right elbow. “Grady! Please…”

He spun around, but clenched his eyes shut. “Daniela--you LEFT me.”

“It wasn’t for another man,” she sputtered, “even though that’s what I told your sister.” She drew a gaspy breath. “My brother was in trouble with the cartel--”

“You left me at the altar on our wedding day, and I haven’t heard a word from you.” Exasperated, broken, Grady opened his eyes. The implosion he feared would happen inside his chest did. He swore softly as a tear dribbled down his cheek. He ached from the inside out.

“I had to rescue his children,” she whispered.

He couldn’t breathe. Kind of didn’t want to. He told himself to inhale, exhale. “Whatever.” No explanation could take back the past five drug-stained years of his life. His world had collapsed on their wedding day and it wasn’t long before the cocaine-induced stupor became his normal.

He shrugged the knapsack from his shoulders. Shoved it at her chest. “Here’s your money.” Grady knew he couldn’t keep it.

The pause between his relinquishing and her acceptance of the money was pregnant with bittersweet emotion. “Better you have it than Mateo,” he quipped.

Her eyes flashed when he said the name, but it was fear. Not guilt.

So he wasn’t her lover.

“The other coyote,” she whispered. “He’s with the cartel that killed my brother.” She inhaled a shuddering breath. “They won’t stop until we’re dead.”

“Let’s get you across the river, then,” Grady said, reaching down to take the injured boy into his arms. “Follow me.”